Race Analysis

10/28/14 -- For now, the New England College poll looks like an outlier, but Hassan's lead -- once over 21 points -- has been steadily whittled away. She could be in for a closer call than expected, but she's still in control.

10/7/14 -- Havenstein is catching up, but Hassan is at 50 percent. She can’t breathe easy, but isn’t overwhelmingly vulnerable either.

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New Hampshire has always been an oddity. For much of the 19th century it was a lone bastion of Democratic politics in New England, and for most of the later 20th century, it was the sole rock-ribbed Republican state in the area. Immigrants fleeing Massachusetts’ high tax rates were attracted to the state’s austere fiscal policy and low tax rates, to the point that just about every New Hampshire politician today takes “The Pledge” not to raise taxes.

The state has also been unique in that it has held the first-in-the-nation primary for decades, allowing it a huge say in who becomes president. Sometimes it has gotten it very wrong -- as when New Hampshire Democrats voted for Herbert Hoover as their nominee in 1920 -- but it has overall done a much better job of picking the eventual winner than the Iowa caucuses.

In 2004, as most of the country was moving toward George W. Bush and the Republicans, New Hampshire voted for John Kerry and threw out its Republican governor, whom it had elected in 2002 by a 20-point margin. The new governor, John Lynch, was re-elected in 2006 with 74 percent of the vote, the highest vote total since Democrat Isaac Hill defeated Joseph Healy of the newly formed Whig Party, 81 percent-8 percent, in 1836. Lynch’s 2008 total was a similarly high 70 percent.

Lynch found himself in a much closer battle in 2010 against an unknown Republican. He opted to retire in 2012. Democrats nominated Senate Majority Leader Maggie Hassan, while Republicans opted for Ovide Lamontagne, a rock-ribbed conservative who, in 1996, became only the sixth Republican gubernatorial nominee to lose an election since 1924. Hassan won by 12 points in 2012. Her opponent for 2014 is businessman Walt Havenstein. Polls have shown her with a solid, although not overwhelming, lead in this race.